Note: This is the first in an occasional series of data presentations about family and religious practice and analysis of their role in maintaining civil society.

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Comments (6)

6 Comments

J. Bob
March 8th, 2011 | 9:38 am

Great Article.

In spite of all the negative comments about the abstinence programs, like adult stem cells, there may be far more longer benefits then the pundits thought.

Will be waiting for more items like this to dicuss at our Bible meetings.

Joey
March 8th, 2011 | 10:33 am

In Allendale, SC where we are (http://differentway4kids.blogspot.com/p/mission-allendale.html), a small scale (just over 120 high school students) survey was done last fall.

It showed that 79% of these students (mostly freshman and sophomores have had sex.

Chuck
March 8th, 2011 | 12:14 pm

The weakness of such surveys is that they depend on the willingness of people to be honest. There is also a very serious question about the sample itself which is why all polling data is prone to major error. Survey models can become extremely inaccurate because of a number of factors, not excluding simple dumb bad luck in finding respondents.

Blake
March 8th, 2011 | 12:24 pm

I would like to know more about the demographic factors aside from race.

This is a purely subjective observation, but it seems to me that kids who don’t see much future in their future are far more likely to get involved sexually at a young age.

Also, kids with “issues” (for lack of a better term) – I don’t mean mental health problems, but I mean a situation where they’re under a lot of stress and/or have a lot of issues of the sort that generate strong emotions. Angry kids, stressed out kids, lonely kids, and so on.

These appear to me to be the factors that influence whether a kid gets involved.

What do young people think will happen as a result of their sexual involvement? How do they imagine it will change their life? What do they perceive as a benefit? What do they perceive as a risk? These are the sorts of questions we need to see answered.

Mary
March 8th, 2011 | 7:00 pm

The weakness of such surveys is that they depend on the willingness of people to be honest.

given that everything from ads to sex education is telling them that they are weird and abnormal if they are not getting laid, the count is probably under, not over.

Ben
March 8th, 2011 | 8:34 pm

What Mary said. I think it’s rather risible to think that very many teenagers at all are lying that they haven’t had sex, as opposed all those to lying that they have. What’s taboo is abstaining from sex, not getting laid. The only demonstration one could need is all the people here denying all the juvenile sexual “delinquency” this survey seems to show.